Secret manual shows Comcast (gasp!) protects customers' privacy
Comcast's confidential "Law Enforcement Handbook" was publicly disclosed on Monday.
It turns out to be a 35-page manual dated September 2007 for police and intelligence agencies to use when they're trying to extract information out of Comcast about subscribers. The company's Internet service, VoIP telephone service and cable TV service are all covered.
Among the highlights:
• Comcast maintains for 180 days a log of what IP addresses its users are assigned.
• Unread e-mail is deleted after 45 days and sent mail after 30 days.
• Comcast does not automatically keep copies of e-mail downloaded through POP (Post Office Protocol) to a program like Thunderbird.
• Requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are handled through FBI field offices in Philadelphia and Trenton, N.J., which will send an agent to "hand deliver" the documents.
• Court-ordered wiretaps cost police $1,000 for a set-up fee and "$750.00 per month for each subsequent month in which the original order or any extensions of the original order are active." Also, Comcast will, for $150 a week when legally obliged to do so, divulge lists of calls made and received.
What's perhaps most interesting, though, is that the leaked handbook shows that Comcast seems to be trying to protect its customers' privacy. I didn't see anything in the document offering to divulge more information than the law permits. Instead, the company repeatedly stresses that police follow legal requirements, and even attaches the text of two federal privacy laws as appendixes.
Of course, those laws may be overly fed-friendly, especially when it comes to FISA requests, orders requiring companies not to delete records and national security letters. Blame federal police and a compliant Congress for that.
Comcast representative Sena Fitzmaurice confirmed on Monday that the handbook was legitimate. It was posted by the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News.
It's worth noting that, in a survey CNET News.com conducted last year of Internet service providers, Comcast said "no" when asked: "Have you turned over information or opened up your networks to the National Security Agency without being compelled by law?"
Others, including AT&T, Cable & Wireless and Global Crossing, refused to answer the question.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
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about Comcast. It appears to be a responsible policy. Unlike the
creeps at AT&T, who appear to make their company little more
than an agent of the executive branch.
And the email retention policy doesn't matter because they store the emails on a Motorola PVR. It crashes every week or so and they lose all the data.
information is already out there and its a little late to worry about it
now.
---
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
as much as i <3 yelling lunatics who believe their views are right just because they can say them louder, it would be nice for said views to be expressed in a manner so that others beside the yelling lunatic knows what said lunatic is talking about.
- now let's see the real one
- by sadchild October 16, 2007 6:07 AM PDT
- now let's see the real one, not the one they printed and leaked to the media
- Like this Reply to this comment
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